TUPED at work so paid twice in once month and heavily taxed

[Deleted User]

Hi,

I work in an accounts office that manages elderly care homes, we are part of a group that over looks many different companies.

We have recently been Tuped over at work onto a head office payroll whereas before we were paid by one of the care home companies.
This is okay but due to this we were paid twice in January and ive therefore been heavily taxed.

I was paid on the 10th January for my last payment from the care home, this was for the period 1st December 2021 to 31st December 2021,
we were always paid on the 10th of each month for the full month period before, i.e - Oct paid 10th nov etc.
We are salaried so we get paid the same amount in our account each month.

I was put as a leaver on the care home payroll as of the 31st Dec 2021 and then TUPED onto the head office payroll as of the 1st Jan 2022,
Going forward we will still be paid for the full month but it'll be paid to us on the 28th of each month,
So the payroll for the 1st January to 31st January was paid to me on the 28th January,
Because I have effectively now been paid twice in one period i have been taxed an extra £209.60, which is a lot for me to be down in my payslip.

Is there anything I can do regarding this, I've spoken to our payroll and she says that it's correct and that basically i just have to deal with it as i will have been paid 13 times now instead of 12 in this tax year.

I'm just finding it a little unfair because if i had been paid for the Jan period like usual on the 10th February i would have been paid my normal pay.

Is there anything further i can do?

Thanks,

Thrugelmir

Tax is due on whatever you earn and when you paid. Nothing to do with fairness. Any overpayment of tax you've incurred. Will wash out over the remaining months of the current tax year, i.e. February and March. 

chrisbur

Sorry but that is how PAYE works.  You have an annual allowance which if you are monthly paid is given to you as 1/12 of the annual figure each month.  If as here you get two paydays in one tax month there is still just the 1/12 allowance so one of those payments gets taxed as if it was an addition to the other payment.  There will be no adjustment going forward your tax will return to its normal level.  
There is one small exception to this which is very unlikely to apply here, which involves moving between tax bands.  For example if your tax code was 1257 and at month 10 you earned over about 41900 due to the extra payday and then your earnings dropped you could have some tax adjusted from 40% to 20% to reduce tax a bit.  To check if you think this would apply to you would need details of latest payslip (taxable gross, tax paid, tax code, month number, and expected future earnings).. 

Chris_English

I’m not clear on what the issue is. You’ve been taxed twice, but you’ve also been paid twice, so does that not mean that you now have more money in your account than you otherwise would have?

emmajones1976

Chris_English said:

I’m not clear on what the issue is. You’ve been taxed twice, but you’ve also been paid twice, so does that not mean that you now have more money in your account than you otherwise would have?

Reads to me that she now just gets paid 12/13 days earlier, rather than getting a double whammy.

superbigal

You have actually been paid now for work you may have not done, assuming you work any dates from 28th to 31st January.
Seems very fair to me.

zagfles

No not really, tax works on a tax year basis so it's what you earn in the tax year that matters. On the plus side your 10th Jan pay only had to last 18 days rather than a full month. If eg you have direct debits tied to your payday eg for credit cards, bills etc, you could look at getting them moved to just after the 28th, which should result in either a month of lower bills, or no bill followed by a bit over a month and half the following month. Either way that could save you more than the extra tax you've paid.

Marcon

Any 'overpaid' tax will automatically be corrected when you are paid in February. As others have pointed out, you've had extra pay in January, which should help to tide you over until your February pay arrives.

zagfles

Marcon said:

Any 'overpaid' tax will automatically be corrected when you are paid in February. As others have pointed out, you've had extra pay in January, which should help to tide you over until your February pay arrives.

Unlikely to be any overpaid tax. It looks correct for two payments in one tax period with a normal 1257L tax code. 12579/12 * 0.2 = 209.65

CKhalvashi

This should even itself out by March, however for now the system assumes the January pay will continue until the end of the year.

We had this issue when moving from the 1st of the month (which often led to the salary being recognised on the previous month) to the last working day of the month, however it sorted itself out before the end of the tax year.

The change was purely to safeguard against this situation happening several months of the year.

zagfles

CKhalvashi said:

This should even itself out by March, however for now the system assumes the January pay will continue until the end of the year.

We had this issue when moving from the 1st of the month (which often led to the salary being recognised on the previous month) to the last working day of the month, however it sorted itself out before the end of the tax year.

The change was purely to safeguard against this situation happening several months of the year.

Nothing like the OP's situation. She is moving from 10th to 28th of previous month, that means 13 paydays this tax year. So an extra £209.60 tax which she won't get back. Moving from 1st of month to last day of month doesn't increase the number of paydays in a tax year. Yours was more likely to avoid occasional problems eg where bank holidays shifted payday into another month, which would only usually cause a temporary problem.